Extreme Makeover: Home Edition
on ABC
By Ally Matteodo
This season, Extreme
Makeover: Home Edition’s theme is volunteerism and giving back. In a way,
the very nature of the show always embodies giving back through the volunteer
effort of the contractors and furniture purveyors, in addition to the altruistic
Ty Pennington and his design team. The Sunday, October 11th episode
(8:00 p.m. ET) wins this week’s title of Best TV Show of the Week.
At the beginning of the episode Ty Pennington and his team welcome celebrity
guest, actor, and rapper Xzibit onto their bus. Xzibit willingly and joyfully
lends his expertise in construction to help the designers create a wonderful new
home for the Hill family of Suffield, Connecticut. William and Catherine Hill,
the patriarch and matriarch of this large brood, had six children before taking
in another seven nieces and nephews. In a brief history of the family, we
clearly witness their selflessness. One of the clan, Sonia Hill, saved her
cousin Shamia by unflinchingly giving her a kidney. The family, as Catherine
Hill explains, is good at making lemonade out of lemons, and their enthusiastic
love of gospel music helps lift them up during tough times. However, when Ty
and his team step in, things have become dire in the Hill’s home; the rooms are
extremely cramped and in the basement there were three inches of standing water
along the floor.
The Hill family is sent to
Disney World on their first family vacation as the renovations to their home
begin. As usual, the design team and the volunteers outdo themselves in
creativity and practicality. Normally, Ty’s project is the master bedroom, but
this time he worked with designer Michael Moloney to create a dining room table
where the whole Hill family can eat together. In a loving touch, the table is
elevated by 13 different legs that represent the 13 members of the Hill clan.
Cleverly recycling the old and combining it in such a way as to make something
new, the innovative designers created a chair made of old bunk beds and books
that were water-damaged from the old house as a reminder of the family’s former
residence. Furthermore, in the master bedroom Catherine Hill gets her own
luxurious and spacious bath tub, and the kids get their own basketball court.
In perhaps the greatest gift of all, at the end the design team reveals
scholarship donations for the entire family, so that everyone can graduate from
college. The bestowment of education combined with the Hill’s infectious energy
and rousing spirit will surely make this family an unstoppable and beneficent
force in the world.
Best TV Show
of the Week
The Parents
Television Council -
www.parentstv.org
